Wonder Woman: Was It Really THAT GOOD?

you know I thought occurred to me when I woke up in my bathtub this morning I've said before that Marvel might be running out of creative energy after the big blowout of Avengers endgame and it makes me wonder if audience interest will start to wane know that most of their favorite characters have been replaced with something else but the irony is that just as the MCU might be heading into troubled waters the DC movies finally seem to be getting their act together Aquaman was a surprise hit that grossed over a billion dollars worldwide while Shazam proved to be a winner with critics and audiences the point is DC seems to be in a much better place now than it was a few years ago and a lot of this change in fortune can be put down to the success of Wonder Woman most people probably didn't expect much from Wonder Woman when it was first announced list of all me it was another movie in a feel and franchise directed by someone I'd never heard of starring someone I didn't particularly care about set during a conflict that most audiences probably know nothing about and dealing with the character I knew best from the shitty 1970s TV show sorry Linda on paper Wonder Woman seemed to have everything going against it but everyone likes an underdog and we were all pleasantly surprised when the movie hit fears and turned out not to be a complete disaster in fact it went on to gross over 800 million dollars worldwide established gal gadot as a leading lady and helped to resurrect a film universe that seemed to be on its last legs well until justice league dropped on us like a 300 million dollar turd everyone was loving Wonder Woman and they just couldn't say enough good things about it but that was then and this is now and since the duster sailed it seems like a good time for me to look back on Wonder Woman and assess it through lenses unclouded by expectations and excitement beer goggles and cataracts will have to do so join me dear viewer as I thrust deep into Wonder Woman with a comprehensive review refusing to pull out until I've reached the most satisfying of conclusions so Wonder Woman kicks off with a bedtime story for a young Diana Prince that tries and fails to explain the absolute madness of the world in which this story operates I'll do my best to sum it up for you but honestly I could probably devote an entire video just to picking apart the lore of this one the gist is that a few thousand years ago Zeus and the gods of Olympus decided to create mankind for a bit of a laugh one day but one person wasn't laughing and that was the God of War reward you I no no not that one I mean the real one Ares I mean honestly what's the point in having a god of war if you're not planning on having any actual Wars isn't a guy like that just guaranteed to cause trouble nah whatever sooo anyway in a shocking twist of fate the God of War started making Wars happen so Zeus created a race of Amazon warriors to help spread peace and love amongst mankind thus a bit like creating fast food to help spread fitness and healthy eating amongst the fatties so this triggers a war amongst the gods and Ares kills them all except Zeus who forces him to run away but one day he'll come back so Zeus creates the weapon capable of killing Ares gives it to the Amazons and sends them away to the hidden Island the famous Kyra where they'll have absolutely no idea what's going on with the world outside and do nothing to protect humanity yeah makes sense to me I guess anyway flash-forward a few thousand years and little Diana's grown up into gal gadot and she's training to be a soldier with Robin right the general of the Amazons army you know this setup raises a few questions for me like how exactly does aging work on this island if everyone who lives there is immortal then how is it even possible to age at all who come to Anna Griffin a little girl into a woman do you reach a certain age and just stop and that's like your default setting is it the same age for everyone but then how come her mother and Robin write or clearly played boy much older actresses which implies they've been getting older themselves and why do the Amazons spend so much time trainin when there's literally nothing for them to do they haven't fought a war in thousands of years why did none of them ever try to leave the island why don't they have any knowledge of the outside world it would totally make sense for them to keep tabs on humanity in k-series returns I mean for all they know he might have wiped out the entire human race hundreds of years ago why hasn't their technology or weapons advanced at all during the thousands of years they've had to prepare I guess they didn't have a magical [ __ ] mineral that can do anything and solve any problem or an insufferable teenage [ __ ] that can do all their science for them [ __ ] off film anyway the peace and tranquility of Diana's life is shattered by the arrival of Steve Trevor an American spy he's on the run from the German military in a stolen by plane the plane crashes offshore and diana saves him and holy [ __ ] that is one beautiful woman right there sorry I lost my train of thought there so it turns out Steve isn't alone a bunch of German soldiers in boats penetrate the shield around the island and invade the place wait what the [ __ ] were they seriously trying to follow an airplane using robots did they really think they'd be able to keep up with it now whatever so the Germans storm ashore and the Amazon army shows up and they have a big battle and Robin Wright gets killed by gunfire because it turns out swords and spears aren't all that good against 20th century infantry weapons but you guys wish you'd invested in a bit more R&D no a sneakers [ __ ] off film you know I have a few questions about this scene how exactly does this shield around the island work is it literally just there to hide the place visually but you can totally pass through it without any issues if so how come nobody's discovered the place by accident before now I mean I can understand how people might have missed it in ancient times when there were fewer ships and trade routes but this movie takes place in the early 20th century there were literally thousands of vessels travel in the world's oceans by this point and you're telling me not one of them happened to pass this way ever also why do the Germans decide to invade this weird magical island that appeared out of nowhere when they have absolutely no idea what the place is who or what lives there or what's going on why does the battleship in the background start sinking for no apparent reason why are the Amazonian meant to be the greatest fighters in the universe but they get kind of owned by a bunch of disorganized German conscripts on with Paul action rifles imagine if they tried to take on the US military of today it would be horrific why haven't they built coastal defenses lookout posts or fortifications to protect their Island from this kind of attack they've had thousands of years to prepare for this [ __ ] but Spears and arrows is the best they can do [ __ ] off film so anyway the Amazons take Steve prisoner to interrogate him he explains that it's known in 1918 the world's been at war for the past four years and millions of people are dead Steve was sent to infiltrate a Germans weapons Factory developing a new kind of poison gas that could win the war for them and he was on his way back to London to report his findings when his plane crashed in the ocean all of how he's totally perplexed that they don't seem to understand what war he's referring to look around you mate do these people really seem like they're up-to-date on current events anyway Diana reckons this war business is all the work of Ares so she decides to go out into the world with Steve and lay the smack down on him and her mother tries to stop her because that's pretty much all she does in this movie anyway the plot needs to move forward so off she goes they get Anna Paul and just sail right through the magical shield around the island so many questions so they get to London and Steve delivers his report to all the generals there and Diana translates to the intelligence he recovered because she can speak every language on earth apparently [ __ ] off film it's worth pointing out that most modern languages are less than a thousand years old so there's absolutely no way she could know this stuff but whatever it seems that general ludendorf is planning to drop the poison gas all across the Western Front killing millions of people and dragging on the war indefinitely what's a scoundrel Diana realizes Ludendorff must be Ares in disguise so she wants to go kill him but the generals are all like nah we'll be fine because they think the Germans are ready to sign an armistice that'll end the war but then David Thewlis shows up to help them out because he helped broker the armistice in the first place and he doesn't want the peace treaty to fall apart sure he doesn't end up betraying them all because he has his own hidden agenda so they're on their way to France to put a stop to Ludendorff's plans and they recruit an ethnically diverse team to help them there's a smooth-talking north african spy a generically wise Native American and a drunken Scottish [ __ ] you know it's stuff like this that gives my country a bad reputation so they get to France and reach the Allied trench he's completely unopposed because that's the thing you could totally do it's not like there's hundreds of thousands of troops in the area who would totally stop you getting within 10 miles of the front line anyway Diana gets sad because there's a woman there with a baby who tells her the Germans captured her village which is kind of weird because Steve just finished saying the front line is basically static and hasn't changed in over a year so has that women just been sitting in the trench for the past year waiting for something to happen didn't anyone think to evacuate her oh well you've got to motivate your protagonist somehow I guess writing is hard isn't it so Diana decide she's gonna save the random French village but to reach it she has to cross no man's land the deaths on between the Allied and German trench lines so that's exactly what she does know I have to admit visually this is a pretty cool scene as they Anna forces her way through no-man's land taking everything the German military can throw at her and ultimately inspiring the Allies soldiers to launch an attack if their own to liberate the village it makes you feel nice things deep inside but then you stop to think about it with your actual brain for a second and you realize it's all a bit pointless like why waste your time and effort fighting the Germans head-on when they're not even your real enemy you're just gonna stir up another huge battle that will cost thousands of innocent lives I mean do you really think the German military would allow a major breach of their front line without trying to counter-attack and close the gap this is exactly why World War one battles were so costly and pointless even if you made it across no-man's land and captured the frontline enemy trenches there would be like five more defensive lanes waiting for you right behind plus they just launched a counter-attack and push you right back out again and what's with Diana's wildly varying power levels this woman is strong enough to lift the tank and go toe-to-toe with super but she stopped in her tracks by machine-gun fire really [ __ ] off film sooo anyway the German High Command are having a big party at nearby castle and Diana and the team head there with different objectives Diana's there to kill Ludendorff because she believes one series is dead people won't want to fight anymore but Steve's mission is to find the poison gas and destroy it so he stops Diana from killing him again I direct you to the fact that Diana's an immortal demigod who's super strong and basically indestructible she could literally kill every single person in that castle without breaking a sweat there's no reason why Steve should even be capable of stopping her nah whatever so Ludendorff launches a poison gas attack against the french village and it kills everyone and Diana's sad no because it turns out civilians can get killed in wars too who knew so they follow Ludendorff to a nearby military base where the poison gas is being loaded into a long-range bomber this reminds me of the climax for another movie set in another war but at least that one was kind of plausible because technology was advanced enough to make it feasible anyway Diana finds Ludendorff and they have probably the most one-sided fight in cinema history an immortal indestructible demigod versus an elderly German man on steroids guess who wins the problem is that killing him doesn't end the war people just carry on like nothing happens what came to flim-flammery is this sir no Diana is confused because she thought Ares was corrupt inhumanity to make them fight each other but it turns out humans are just [ __ ] and war is kind of what we do war it's fantastic so Steve realizes she's gonna need a few days to get her head around this so he leaves to intercept the [ __ ] look in German bomber that's when David Thewlis shows up wait a minute what's he doing here I thought he was a kindly old politician from London town but he's actually Ares in disguise he's been behind the whole thing all along what an absolute bounder but drinker you smooth-talking ladies man I hear you see isn't he the same guy who brokered the peace deal with the Germans why would a god of war want peace the truth is I've got no idea because the script doesn't seem to know either you see this is where the movies shaky plot starts to fall apart apparently eerie setup the Armistice knowing it would eventually fall apart and everyone would go to war again because he wants humanity to destroy itself so the world will finally be at peace what the actual [ __ ] that's your plan you're the god of war shouldn't you want humanity to exist in a state of perpetual conflict if there's no people there's no war so there's no point in you even existing and then he claims he magically influenced people like Ludendorff to keep the war going but then he totally contradicts himself a second later and says the whole war thing was inside them the whole time because humans are flawed and they love war anyway so which is at me are you the genius mastermind of this entire conflict or are you just standing by and twirling your mustache while the world burns itself if I didn't know better I'd say the writers were sacrificing logic and narrative consistency for the sake of having a shocking twist but then what do I know about storytelling no this scene might not make any sense but I do like the pacing and the setup of their confrontation and for a minute I actually thought this movie was gonna do things a bit different maybe Diana was gonna have to out think and outsmart her opponent maybe Wonder Woman would balk the trend of tired CGI crapfest bowels maybe this movie would do something smart and original for once [Music] no I never mind sooo they fight and stuff explodes and it's all pointless because they're both invincible anyway then Steve sacrifices himself to destroy the poison gas bomber so Diana gets sad and she uses the power of love or something - shoot bolts of lightning of Ares and then he blows up and then everyone magically stops fighting which is the exact opposite of what this movie was trying to tell us about human nature but whatever right in his heart and we need to wrap this thing up I guess so the movie ends with Diana in the present day deciding to be Wonder Woman again fighting cruelty and injustice with renewed hope and optimism shame she doesn't know what's coming next and that's it that's the plot of Wonder Woman before I really get into my criticism I will see it there are a lot of things this movie gets right the casting of gal gadot was a brilliant choice she's beautiful and natural in the role she seemed to capture Diana's sense of wonder innocence and optimism and she actually seems like a genuinely good and humble person that you can't help but warm to unlike someone a kid named patty Jenkins really seems to understand her limitations as an actress and she works around them pretty effectively although in her more experienced co-stars to do most of the heavy lifting and there's a decent chemistry between her and Pine although for some reason he's picked up a stutter in this movie that really boils my piss after a while I don't know I don't know maybe it's them Jesus Christ man just spit it out anyway it makes me laugh that they gave everyone on thermos Kira and Israeli accent rather than try to make gal gadot speak like an American Diana at least has a good character arc she goes from a naive and sheltered young woman who sees only the best in humanity to a wiser but ultimately sadder character who's experienced the worst aspects of mankind but ultimately she regains her faith that there's something Noble in the human spirit that's worth fighting for most of the action scenes are well shot and there's enough downtime in character moments in between to pace things oh the dialogue is possible there are some decent jokes even if it likes the slick witness of the Marvel movies but at least it's not as dull and pretentious as desert Schneider films there are problems with Wonderwoman though and most of them revolve around the script the villains motivations are muddled and confused constantly trying to bend themselves around whatever is actually happening in the story and usually they end up contradicting themselves and undermining the film's message ludendorff and dr. Poisson are pretty dull was secondary antagonists which is a shame because they're played by good actors who could do a lot more if they had better material to work with the Village People wannabes also had the potential to be good but aside from Sameer they never really do anything useful the Scottish guy is the absolute worst example he's got PTSD and he can't bring himself to shoot anyone so you might think his plot arc would be about learning to overcome his fear and fight to save his friends at a crucial woman but you'd be wrong he's just as much of a useless are sold by the end as he was at the start what's a waste of time the final battle seemed like it was going to do something interesting until it disintegrated into a mindless overblown ridiculous CGI mess where I couldn't even tell what was going on half the time I also couldn't tell you how Diana actually defeated Ares in the end it's not like she found some hidden flaw in an otherwise unstoppable enemy and used it to turn the tables on him she just came to blasted him and then he was gone Wonder Woman clearly wants to say something about the conflicted nature of humanity are destructive impulses versus our capacity for bravery and sacrifice it just doesn't know exactly what it wants to say or how to get it across what you're left with instead is a superficially charming film with good intentions that knows how to pull all the right emotional strings but ultimately misses the mark because it's script just isn't smart enough to deal with the weighty philosophical themes it tries to address honestly I think most of us were so amazed that it wasn't a steaming pile of garbage that we were willing to overlook its flaws and just enjoy it for what it was the problem is that what it was got consistently blown out of proportion in our collective minds until the film ultimately took on a reputation that it didn't quite deserve did I hate it not at all in fact I liked it a lot more than most movies of its kind but it's my job to drink and to criticize as honestly as possible and know that I've done one it's time to get cracking on the other oh and that's all I have for today go away No

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,376,757

Keywords: Gal Gadot, Patty Jenkins, Chris Pine, Ludendorff, David Thewlis, review, Diana Prince, Doctor Poison, Steve Trevor, Amazons, Amazonians, feminism, SJW, DCEU

Id: WDd6CipM558

Length: 19min 32sec (1172 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ClockworkFool]

Without watching the video, just responding to the title?

Strong in the first two thirds, awful in the finale. Not up to the standards of the average Marvel Cape-film, but punching way above average for a recent DC superhero film. Shame the last third of the film lost the plot, really.

Might check back in later if I get chance, actually click the link in the OP.

[u/4thdimensionviking]

It is one of the better super hero origin films, probably only second to Iron Man. *That includes Captain America first avenger, it has a worse third act than WW imo. After he saves Bucky and the howling commandos it the plot was just a montage railroad straight to the fight at the hydra base.

It does a good job of not stuffing steve or Diana aside for the other, makes them both look competent and useful in their own ways. I liked her earnest naivete compared to Steve being pragmatic, and her truly believing the best in mankind. I thought the twist on who Aries was worked great, war isn't always what we imagine and I like how he found a way to weaponize peace.

The magic lightning battle was meh at best, steves sacrifice was a little convoluted, and patty jenkins uses slow mo/bullet time for emphasis to much. Sure Diana would need to have super reflexes to block bullets but they used it from steves perspective at least once.

*edit for format and the CA rant

[u/[deleted]]

It's not even a woke film, not more woke than the older wonder woman adaptations. The annoying thing was all the marketing around it making it into this liberation piece for women when it's really just a superhero movie like any other.

[u/ISSEquinox]

It was just ok. I liked it because it didn’t seem to have any SJW bullshit in it. (Also Gadot is pretty fucking cute)

[u/Judah_Earl]

No it wasn't.

[u/[deleted]]

It was a good movie. The final battle was really disappointing though.

[u/MishtaMaikan]

First half was good, I didn't enjoy the "greek philosophy sex talks". Then it went downhill and the fight / sacrifice ending felt like the movie should have ended long ago.

Not a masterpiece, but okay. If I watched it again I would bail after 3/4 of it to skip the boring part.

[u/[deleted]]

I really liked it.